Another land slip

[Wickham Green too]

14 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

... I have yet to be shown a Victorian 'balancing pond' or land set aside to deliberately flood at times of heavy rain ...

Nope - water meadows existed long, long before the Victorians came along .................... I think they're called housing estates nowadays.

 

Edited March 10 by Wickham Green too

[APOLLO]

West Coast Main Line 1.5 miles north of Wigan, near my house.

 

Barley Brook passes under the line twice within 100m, and floods in high rainfall. The northern culvert (on my side, the east of the line) is shown here a couple of weeks ago after heavy rain. This was reported to Network Rail last year by myself (separate occasion). They sent a guy out when it was pitch black but promised to look into it. The problem here is definitely within the railway fence.

 

We residents have problems further downstream, these are United Utilities / Wigan MBC problems though. We also had the Environment Agency visit. They're as useful as a chocolate fireguard.

 

"Remedies" are still in progress (NOT the culvert shown below though, no one bothers about this as it floods the railway land on the other side !!.

 

All photos taken on the public side of the fence.

 

 

 

Same culvert other (west) side, took some finding in the dense vegetation !!

 

 

This is the downstream culvert normal flow last August. 

 

 

This is the downstream culvert during flood last December. It is backing up from another culvert further downstream under a road embankment (owned by Wigan MBC), Network Rail promised a full inspection of this culvert. Results as yet unknown.

 

 

I keep my eyes on this lot, (and more) especially after heavy rain. Some houses nearby got seriously flooded in December. We have a local neighbours whatsapp group (useful) and have all the contact details ready, along with names, email addresses etc. Yes they were helpful (Except the EA), but the brook infrastructure, culverts etc was designed over 150 years ago !!

 

Luckily (for me) the railway is on a 1in150 incline rising out of town, so we are pretty high up. If the flood reaches rail level it will just run south and cause mayhem elsewhere !!!

 

Global warming or lack of maintenance ? - Both I reckon.

 

Brit15

[franciswilliamwebb]

And the rail replacement bus doesn't fit under the rail bridge...

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn04vpz1ekpo

[APOLLO]

Just to complete the picture (ran out of Mb on last post) here is the flood on the other (west) side not far of rail level last December. Footpath unwalkable past here.

 

 

All these pictures (and more) were put in a report by compiled by neighbours & myself to all the relevant authorities. To be honest we might as well have prayed to the rain gods !!!

 

Urinating in a strong headwind is the Wigan phrase oft used !!

 

Brit15

[TheSignalEngineer]

On 09/03/2024 at 15:28, Winnie said:

There is a slip at Oakengates which occured yesterday on the Wolverhampton to Shrewsbury line .

https://www.shropshirestar.com/news/local-hubs/shrewsbury/2024/03/09/train-line-could-face-disruption-for-the-rest-of-the-month-after-landslip/

I'm not sure of the exact location but it looks like around Hadley. That area is riddled with old mineshafts and there were opencasts and clay pits everywhere. 

[phil-b259]

8 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

Nope - water meadows existed long, long before the Victorians came along .................... I think they're called housing estates nowadays.

 

 

Don't talk nonsense! Water meadows were not created / designed by Victorians - they are a consequence of geology, hydrology and the sculpting of the landscape by ice ages etc.

 

Whilst its true that Victorians generally did not build houses on water Medows that is largely because the technology to do so was in its infancy and the need to do so was not perceived to be there as it was considered quite acceptable for poor people to live in slum housing 

[john new]

9 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

Nope - water meadows existed long, long before the Victorians came along .................... I think they're called housing estates nowadays.

 

Water meadows were part of agriculture. Water was let on in controlled systems via paddle/sluice gates into dyked  systems. I’m not an expert but my vague memory is that it was done so that silt would be dropped into designed segments separated by raised berms.

 

Edited March 10 by john new
Correcting an auto correct typo.

[phil-b259]

9 hours ago, Southernman46 said:

 new systems for renewals are also designed to cope with 1 in XYZ monsoon events etc .

 

That is not in doubt but quite frankly those enhancements (they aren't renewals if they actually increase capacity - a renewal would be a like for like with no enhancements to throughput) are too few in number.

 

Ever heard of "closing the gate after the horse has bolted"? - becaus thats what is going on here - too little is being done to expand the drainage provision too late!

 

Throughout the 80s, 90s and 2000s the powers that be sat back and did nothing to expand the system and eek out every ounce of 'overcapacity' that the Victorians built into their systems, preferring to sweat the assets and syphon off money for dividends or simply not spend as much as was needed to keep up with population growth while at the same time ignoring the early warning signs scientists were highlighting about man made climate change.

 

Edited March 10 by phil-b259

[TheSignalEngineer]

Looking at the pictures of the Wellington - Oakengates slip there's about four times as much ballast below sleeper level as when I used to work along there in the 1970s. That would be about 3 - 4 tonnes more stone per metre of railway, plus the extra weight of concrete sleepers and heavier rail.

[phil-b259]

7 minutes ago, john new said:

Water meadows were part of agriculture. Water was let on in controlled systems via paddle/sluice gates into dyked  systems. I’m not an expert but my vague memory is that it was done so that silt would be dropped into designed segments separated by raised berms.

 

You miss the point - water doesn't naturally flow uphill!

 

If a system of dykes etc is used to keep water out and sluices let it in then the land itself is meant to flood by virtues of it elevation with respect to nearby watercourses!

 

Its elevation (and other geological attributes) will have been put in place long before man, let alone the Victorians arrived to mess round with it.

 

Unless the Victorians went about the business of celibately removing huge quantities of soil to lower that elevation then Water Medows are NOT a man made feature - all humans have done is to manage that landscape to their advantage.

 

[franciswilliamwebb]

1 hour ago, TheSignalEngineer said:

I'm not sure of the exact location but it looks like around Hadley. That area is riddled with old mineshafts and there were opencasts and clay pits everywhere. 

 

Yes it's here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/GsxNSBrySTqLD4yM6

There's been an awful lot of digging, levelling and new building around there in recent years.

 

[TheSignalEngineer]

1 minute ago, phil-b259 said:

Throughout the 80s, 90s and 2000s the powers that be sat back and did nothing to expand the system and eek out every ounce of 'overcapacity' that the Victorians built into their systems, preferring to sweat the assets and syphon off money for dividends or simply not spend as much as was needed to keep up with population growth while at the same time ignoring the early warning signs scientists were highlighting about man made climate change.

Not only with the drainage system. When we used to do the school run to pick up grandchildren we had a game amongst the families to guess where the next water leak would be. Every couple of weeks the water would start coming up through the road so it duly got reported to United Utilities. A few days later the temporary light would go up and chaos would endue for about a week. We would give our predictions of where and when water would next appear through the road surface after the supply was turned back on. Rather than renew the main, their long term solution is to reduce the pressure by 25% so that the water takes longer to reach the surface.

Cadent are even worse. It took them Nine Years   to find a leak by Marple Station. Actually it turned out more serious as just about every joint for about 400 metres was not gas tight. After they had tried to fix them on numerous occasions they found that some sections of pipe were life expired and about 200 metres has recently been replaced. What started as an emergency job to fix a leak ended up taking 64 days with a complete road closure. 

[john new]

1 hour ago, phil-b259 said:

 

You miss the point - water doesn't naturally flow uphill!

 

If a system of dykes etc is used to keep water out and sluices let it in then the land itself is meant to flood by virtues of it elevation with respect to nearby watercourses!

 

Its elevation (and other geological attributes) will have been put in place long before man, let alone the Victorians arrived to mess round with it.

 

Unless the Victorians went about the business of celibately removing huge quantities of soil to lower that elevation then Water Medows are NOT a man made feature - all humans have done is to manage that landscape to their advantage.

 

No. There is a big difference between flood plain land in a valley bottom, which is exactly what you described, and water meadows. A flood plain used for agriculture can be grazing or arable but is not necessarily a water meadow system.
 

A water meadow system was/is a designed manipulation of the land so that it can be deliberately flooded in the relevant season as part of the agrarian process. A balancing pond/lake is operated in an almost identical way but the purpose is different. It may or not be located in the flood plain and, given that they are intended specifically to hold back the run off, a significant % obviously are not. A WM on the other hand is not a flood prevention system but designed for agriculture to create a better meadow. Balancing pond systems are designed specifically for run off/flood control, like Clifton Ings in York they may be used to run cattle out of the flood periods but that is the bonus not the prime purpose. 
 

Possibly semantics but the difference is significant - water meadows may have always got flooded accidentally in adverse weather conditions like any other low lying land the key point is though that they were a specific man-made adaptation, part of working farmland. Modern building on what were working water meadows is because in essence (a) farming has changed and (b) societal stupidity in building on inappropriately located low lying land.

 

Edited March 10 by john new
Grammar correction

[TheSignalEngineer]

39 minutes ago, franciswilliamwebb said:

 

Yes it's here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/GsxNSBrySTqLD4yM6

There's been an awful lot of digging, levelling and new building around there in recent years.

 

That's the area I was thinking it was. There are about 25 disused shafts there up to at least 250 years old. They definitely predated the railway. The big hole in the ground to the north of the line was the clay pit for the brick and tile works next to the LNWR Coalport Branch. Looking at old pictures on Google Earth there was a lot of work done next to the railway about 10-15 years ago. This, looking North, shows the old clay its alongside the railway c2012.

 

Looking South I don't like the look of that black stuff in the embankment. Looks too much like the stuff under the Mam Tor Road.

 

[Wickham Green too]

1 hour ago, phil-b259 said:

Don't talk nonsense! ...

Please read what I wrote viz "water meadows existed long, long before the Victorians came along".

[APOLLO]

Thai railways cope just fine during floods - Diesel Hydraulics !!!

 

 

Brit15

[TheSignalEngineer]

Was Walsall No.3 the only signal box to be provided with a lifeboat service?

[franciswilliamwebb]

32 minutes ago, TheSignalEngineer said:

That's the area I was thinking it was. There are about 25 disused shafts there up to at least 250 years old. They definitely predated the railway. 

 

Par for the course round here, we’re on top of old shafts on the other side of Oakengates.  A fairly average modern house, but the cellars are something else 😉

[phil-b259]

42 minutes ago, APOLLO said:

Thai railways cope just fine during floods - Diesel Hydraulics !!!

 

 

But I bet they don't have any army of laywers ready to sue everybody nor a criminal prosecution service which would eagerly throw people in prison if a train came off the track due to floodwater displacing the ballast or undermining an embankment etc.

 

That is the biggest difference (because the derailment risks associated with running trains through floodwater don't change wherever you are on the globe)  - while meaning no disrespect in places like Thailand they are still effectively stuck in the Victorian era with respect to how the legal system works with 'risks' and 'hazards' enforcement.

Edited March 10 by phil-b259

[APOLLO]

11 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

But I bet they don't have any army of laywers ready to sue everybody nor a criminal prosecution service which would eagerly throw people in prison if a train came off the track due to floodwater displacing the ballast or undermining an embankment etc.

 

That is the biggest difference (because the derailment risks associated with running trains through floodwater don't change wherever you are on the globe)  - while meaning no disrespect in places like Thailand they are still effectively stuck in the Victorian era with respect to how the legal system works with 'risks' and 'hazards' enforcement.

 

There is a common sense / safety balance to be drawn between the two "extremes", erring of course on the side of safety.

 

Agree the safety culture is not very advanced in Thailand.

 

Brit15

[Michael Hodgson]

11 hours ago, APOLLO said:

Thai railways cope just fine during floods - Diesel Hydraulics !!!

 

 

Brit15

 

Good job it's not electrified on the third rail system.

[31A]

13 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

 

Good job it's not electrified on the third rail system.

The signals seem to be 'black'!

[Wickham Green too]

47 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Good job it's not electrified on the third rail system.

Anyone remember Clock House when it used to flood !!?!

[TheSignalEngineer]

Drainage outside the railway is an old problem.  The flooding at Walsall was usually caused by blockages of the culverts and bridges in the stream coming down from Ryecroft.

 

In the early days of Railtrack we were asked to lead an infrastructure condition survey with emphasis on the state of signalling. We took on board experienced ex BR Pway and bridge engineers to accompany us on site visits. 

 

When I presented the preliminary report to the client I was asked what I thought were the biggest risks to the reliability of the train service as far as the infrastructure was concerned. The Railtrack man was expecting me to point out deficiencies in the signalling but I chose two other risks. One was the number of bridge bashes particularly at two locations with a lot of HGV traffic where visibility was poor and signage needed to be better. The other was the amount of waterlogged cess areas due to lack of maintenance on cutting faces and draiinage.

One particular area was in Smethwick where there is a culverted stream above the railway which IIRC crosses under the cutting in a siphon. I found an historical incident during my research for possible causes. My draft note in the report was 

 

"It is possible that this comes from the lake in West Smethwick Park as this has been the cause of previous major flooding. In 1927 following heavy rain water overflowed from an undertrack culvert. It ran down the gradient (through Smethwick West) and round the curve to Galton Junction washing out the Stour Valley Line. It was estimated that 5000 tons of debris was washed into the canal.

LMS Birmingham to Wolverhampton rail services were suspended for four days but complete clearance of the canal took nine weeks."

 

I can't find my source document at the moment but I have a picture of the 1927 washout somewhere and how many hundred men it took to clear the line and replace the ballast during the four days of blockage.

[MidlandRed]

On 10/03/2024 at 21:59, TheSignalEngineer said:

Was Walsall No.3 the only signal box to be provided with a lifeboat service?

My understanding of the susceptibility of Walsall station to flooding was, as stated by @TheSignalEngineer the problem that the culvert through which the Ford Brook passed under the town centre was periodically over topped. No doubt, as with all culverts, there was an element of blockage but particularly when the flow at the upstream (northern) end of the culvert just south of Ryecroft, on the east side of railway exceeded the entry capacity, the brook diverted to the adjacent four track railway which became a river as the railway is on a downhill gradient, rejoining the brook south of the station! This happened at times of excessive rainfall, and the associated River Tame was susceptible to flooding at similar times further south, between Bescot and Perry Barr - on one occasion in the 60s, one of the overbridges was washed out and Great Barr (now Hamstead) station was flooded. The process at Walsall was best viewed from the multi story car park which spans the railway just north of St Paul’s Street. The railway certainly continued to flood after the Sadler’s Centre shopping mall was built next to the station and has also affected that. The very low under bridge south of the station (Bridgeman Street) has raised footways and also floods - there are plenty of photos on line of vehicles almost totally submerged with the driver sitting on the roof - the raised footways giving the illusion the water was only as deep as the edge of the footway! 

Edited March 11 by MidlandRed